


Jingle Elves

by sincerelyhwang



Series: sincerelyhwang's not-quite-drabbles [2]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Christmas fic, M/M, Mall Santa Claus, Mall elves, Tired Seo Changbin, blink and you'll miss it seungbin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 12:55:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29454171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sincerelyhwang/pseuds/sincerelyhwang
Summary: Changbin's tired of his coworkers bickering.He never expects them to actually be able to get along.
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Hwang Hyunjin
Series: sincerelyhwang's not-quite-drabbles [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2189169
Comments: 6
Kudos: 49
Collections: SKZ Seasons of Love





	Jingle Elves

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [SKZ_Seasons_of_Love](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SKZ_Seasons_of_Love) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> the classic sarcastic mall santa elves coworkers au we deserve
> 
> Author's note: I kinda rushed this one a bit so it's really short, while doing this I also realized I have no sarcasm for writing :') nevertheless I hope readers enjoy it!

Changbin hears them before he enters the room.

“You look ugly.”

“You’re literally wearing the same get up as me.”

A jingling noise momentarily causes the argument to pause, a muffled curse was uttered before said argument resumed full swinging.

“Well too bad but I’m taller.” He hears Hyunjin proclaim.

“Well I’m shorter so I actually look the part, you just look like that giant from Jack and the Beanstalk now.”

There was a brief moment of silence following the retort, and Changbin imagines that Hyunjin’s frowning at this statement. He hears Jisung’s cackle and sighs at his own affirmation.

He steps into the room just in time to hear Jisung continue, the two of them seemingly unaware of his entrance.

“Just imagine, instead of making toys and giving children gifts picked by Santa you’re just stomping around yelling fee fi fo fum and threatening to eat them.” Jisung crows as he adjusts his fake elf ears to prevent them from slipping off, ignoring Hyunjin’s glower. “You could definitely do with some extra human meat though, please tell me you’ve been eating more lately.”

“My eating habits are not for you to judge,” Hyunjin hisses, in an attempt to not broadcast his personal affairs to the rest of the mall. “And you know I have to diet for that upcoming recital.”

“And you need energy for practices for that exact same recital,” Jisung retorts. “Please eat something during your lunch break.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!”

“Do you guys ever stop squabbling?” a third voice cuts in, and all three heads in the room turn to see the manager of the Mall Santa event, a resigned expression on his face upon hearing said squabbling. The bells on the tips of Hyunjin and Jisung’s hats jingle with the sharp movement, and Changbin’s face pinches at the jarring sound they make.

Changbin silently thanks Lee Minho for interfering, he can already feel a headache rising and he hasn’t had his coffee for the day.

“No,” the pair retorted back at the same time, and then proceeded to grimace at the coincidence.

“Well whatever strange sort of flirting you guys have going on there, please keep it to yourselves. I don’t want to be a part of it.” Minho is already out the door before Jisung could come to his senses to fire back a quick retort.

Changbin lets out another sigh as the pair immediately fall back into their banter, and he resigns to get some coffee from the mall’s Starbucks before their shift begins.

“I still don’t get it, why was I not chosen as Santa?” Hyunjin grouches over his bowl of Salad Stop during their lunch break. They had half an hour left before they were due for the afternoon shift, but Hyunjin had never been the fastest eater, preferring to pick at his romaine lettuces than to actually put them in his mouth.

Jisung was the complete opposite however, shovelling cherry tomatoes down at breakneck speed. It probably helped that he wasn’t as picky an eater as Hyunjin, who wouldn’t touch half the vegetables in his bowl but ordered them “because they’re healthy”.

“I already told you,” Jisung munches, a stray bit of chicken flying out of his open mouth. He pretends he doesn’t see Hyunjin’s nose wrinkling at the action and continues: “it’s cause he’s buff and all and kids would rather hug a bufflord than hug a twig. Even if Santa is shorter than his elves.”

Changbin is inclined to believe that, if he hadn’t seen the small grin of slyness on Minho’s face before announcing that Changbin would be Santa. He doesn’t know their manager as well as Jisung does (lifelong neighbour and all that shit) but he wouldn’t cross him out for making that decision on purpose.

“Well that’s not fair, I’m good with kids!” Hyunjin whines, twirling another few strands of spaghetti with his fork.

“Our definitions of good seem to differ,” Jisung deadpans. “Also Changbin’s actually good with kids, they love him.”

And despite only having worked five shifts as a mall santa, it was something undisputed by his coworkers.

Changbin oftentimes comes off as intimidating, and his wardrobe of dark clothes and generally menacing aura attest to that. His boyfriend Seungmin had once remarked that before knowing how friendly and approachable Changbin actually was, he had actively given him a wide berth at school due to Changbin emanating “dark energy”.

_(“It was as though you had dark clouds looming over you, and your resting bitch face was doing you no favours babe.”)_

But unbeknownst to most people, Changbin was what his family and friends dubbed “a child whisperer”. Changbin just chalks it up to all the experiences he’s had with kids growing up.

He had started off with babysitting his younger cousin Jeongin, then babysitting his neighbours’ kids for extra pocket money when he got older. By the time college rolled around, choosing to major in Early Education had been one of Changbin’s easiest life decisions.

_(And maybe one thing he liked about being good with kids was how they had no preconceived notions about him.)_

He’s startled out of his musings from the screeching sounds of chairs getting dragged over the restaurant’s linoleum flooring, a sign that Hyunjin had finally finished his salad. Changbin looks up to see Jisung tossing his utensils away in the trash, his head turned away from the bin to bicker with Hyunjin. He supposes that at the very least, the pair have finally decided to use their inside voices with each other.

As Changbin turns his back to them to throw out his trash, he misses said bickering pair’s hands slipping into each others’.

Changbin takes one look at their held hands and screeches.

It’s the end of the day, and it also marks Changbin’s first week as a mall santa. He just wants to go out for dinner with his boyfriend, and Seungmin’s already waiting for him outside the mall’s staff entrance. Instead he sees his coworkers hand-in-hand as he comes back from the mall toilets, having finally peeled his santa outfit off of his skin.

“Wait hold on a minute, you guys are dating?”

Jisung gives a confused look to Changbin. “Well duh, I thought you knew?”

“Um no? You guys literally gave no clues about it.”

“But we did? Minho said it himself, we were flirting.”

“I thought he was being sarcastic!”

“Well he wasn’t wrong though, that’s how we flirt with each other.”

“I’ve also never seen you guys engage in any PDA except for your usual rough housing! Like, I’ve never seen you guys even kiss!”

“Oh yeah this one’s on Hyunjin,” Jisung interjects, gesturing his free hand vaguely in Hyunjin’s direction. “He didn’t want to like, make out in those elf costumes. Said they were extremely unsexy and would kill whatever vibe we had going for us.”

“I don’t even want to be caught dead in those ugly costumes, let alone snog my boyfriend in it.” Hyunjin grumbles, his nose wrinkling at the thought. “I even had to pay my brother to not come down to the mall to take pictures for future blackmail purposes.”

“Yes babe, you’ve mentioned that on our first day.” Jisung cajoles. “We even made plans to sneak our suits out just to burn them remember?”

Changbin’s not usually one for the dramatics, but now he’s feeling kind of faint. “Wait till Minho hears about this.”

“Nuh-uh,” Jisung immediately interjects, glaring at him. “Not a word to Minho about our plans with the costumes or else we’ll PDA in your face every single day.”

Changbin shivers, knowing he’s trapped where he is.

But as he watches Hyunjin nuzzling his nose into Jisung’s neck, he supposes they’re kind of cute.

It certainly also explains why they seemingly know each other so well despite all the constant arguing and snide remarks.

As Changbin leaves his coworkers behind in the room, he starts processing everything that just went down. Maybe he can blackmail them about the costumes in exchange for moments of peace and quiet, lord knows just how much more he’d have to hear throughout the rest of the holiday season.

**Author's Note:**

> Minho finds out about the missing elf costumes anyway cause he does a stock check on the costumes, he then storms into Jisung's room after work cause they're neighbours and proceeds to choke Jisung after he finds out the costumes were burnt. Hyunsung end up paying for the missing costumes but it doesn't matter cause they got their satisfaction from burning it.
> 
> Thank you to the Seasons of Love admins for being patient with me despite all my delays!!
> 
> You can find me on twitter [ here ](https://twitter.com/sincerelyhwang?s=20)


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